politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
It looks like it would split the Democratic vote too. Which suggests a lot of Democratic voters (like pretty much all Republican voters) don't have the first clue what's going on.
That could be a great thing. If Musk launched a party with large enough base support of clueless morons to destabilize both Rep and Dem parties, that would create space for the creation of a liberal/left party, and suddenly we have escaped the crushing gravity of the two-party system.
That said, I doubt Musks party would have even a fraction of the support that is suggested.
Actually, a new party that successfully pulls from both parties would most likely be centrist at best.
It doesn't matter if Musk’s party is centrist or far right. The point is, if it pulled enough support to destabilize 2 party elections, that opens up space for more parties to legitimately enter the political arena. It could cause a domino effect that would open space for the rise of a true left party.
Centrist, so… left of the democrats?
Centrists as in centrists. People who are center-right aren't going to join a party that intends to go far left.
That's context we don't actually have.
It's possible that Democrats are simply clueless as you suggest, but we don't know how many people supported this not because they intend to join Musk's third party, but because they also know that it'll split the GOP vote and make Democrat victories easier.
That would only hurt the Democratic Party if it split at approximately the same ratio as the Republican Party. If half of Republicans split while only a tenth of Democrats split, the results favor Democrats majorly.
That said, we don't have anywhere near enough data.
My guess is 30 to 40 % Reps leave, 5 to 15 % Dems leave, and a whole bunch of 'independents' join as well, various libertarians and crypto/techbro type people.
EDIT:
collapsed inline media
Yay, I don't have to do ~~any~~ too much math, they actually did most of the math.
Apologies for shitty cell phone image, here's the whole poll (3rd link in the article, by the way):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R4pZVo0ZnrQyElZQzdNtt7CQ1zwTypuS/view
...
So, ballparking a 50/50 male female split:
Likely to Join Elon's Party:
Very likely: 23 + 14 / 2 = 18.5%
Somewhat likely: 34 + 29 / 2 = 31.5%
Not likely: 31 + 30 / 2 = 30.5%
Very likely: 18 + 11 / 2 = 14.5%
Somewhat likely: 29 + 26 / 2 = 27.5%
Not likely: 35 + 36 / 2 = 15.5%
Very likely: 7 + 5 / 2 = 6%
Somewhat likely: 15 + 16 / 2 = 15.5%
Not likely: 54 + 48 / 2 = 51%
...
So, if you say half of the 'somewhat likely's actually go for it, then you get this:
Republicans who join Elon Party: 34.25%
Independents who join Elon Party: 28.25%
Democrats who join Elon Party: 13.75%
...
So yep, my ballpark guess was indeed in the correct ballpark.
...
Worth mentioning:
There are more Dem voters, than Republicans.
But there are also more independents than either.
Roughly 32% Reps, 33% Dems, 35% Indp.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/the-partisanship-and-ideology-of-american-voters/
So, throw that in with those previous calcs, and you end up with:
Reps: ~21%
Dems: ~28.5%
Elons: ~25.5%
Indps: ~25%
or, normalized to remove remaining Indps:
Reps: 28%, Dems: 38%, Elons: 34%
So... theoretically, the Dems are still the largest, Elon is now second behind them, and the Reps are now a third party, less popular than having no solid political affiliation.
... if this actually happened, which it could, Elon has enough money to single handedly start a party, though he'd have to find some actually competent people to... do anything other than spend money...
I think you end up with a good number of corpo Dems leaving the Dems, so the Dems now have an easier time shifting to the left.
The Reps lose 1/3 of their voters, and basically just become a cult of idiot racist nazis, paleocons, theocrats, MAGA nutjobs.
Elon party ... basically becomes the 'centrist'/libertarian/ancap/corpo party.
... and everyone would now have to figure out how to do politics in a much more complex kind of paradigm.
I... don't think a roughly even balanced 3 party system has ever existed in US history with any kind of stability, that endured more than one or two Presidential elections, 8 years.
Two roughly approximate examples:
The Civil War.
Teddy Roosevelt going Bull Moose Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_States
But uh yeah, not stable.
And these numbers are close enough that a 3 party system might not implode quickly... or it also could.
Especially if the President just gets to remain as functionally a dictator as the last months and years Supreme Court rulings have made him.
???